Seaside police chief seeks to soothe camera fears

Seaside's police chief attempted to make the case Tuesday for the purchase and installation of surveillance cameras to help fight crime in the city.

Chief Vicki Myers addressed a crowd of about 200 people in a 90-minute session at the Oldemeyer Center, offering a multi-pronged sales pitch for why the city should implement more than 20 cameras in high-crime areas of Seaside.

Among those in attendance were Seaside Mayor Pro Tem Ian Oglesby, council members Dennis Alexander, Alvin Edwards and David Pacheco, and four other high-ranking members of the Seaside Police Department: Deputy Chief Louis Lumpkin and Cmdrs. Chris Veloz, Judy Straden and Bruno Diaz.

The STEMA Camera Project was developed by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, which has already provided Seaside with four of the devices. Myers said Tuesday that she expects to ask the City Council in October to allow her to install and use those cameras with the hope of buying and installing about 20 more.

The total price of the project has been estimated at $220,000, said Myers, who is hopeful that much of the cost will be defrayed by technology grants and funding from the Department of Homeland Security.

"My first goal is to fund it that way," she said. "If I can't get funding that way, I'll go back to the council and ask them for the money."

Myers spent the second half of the evening addressing concerns and answering questions from the audience, but not before she attempted to explain why surveillance cameras have become a necessary crime-fighting tool for the Seaside Police Department.

"The mission of the Seaside Police Department is to provide quality police services in partnership with our community. We cannot do this alone," she said.

Myers said Seaside's crime rate was down 18 percent in 2012, but is up 5.3 percent so far this year, primarily due to larcenies and burglaries.

More alarming in Seaside is gang activity, said Myers, who noted that Monterey County ranked No. 1 in California for youth homicides in 2009-10, mostly attributable to the activities of an estimated 5,000 documented gang members in the county.

"The direct cost to address gang violence, just for Monterey County, is estimated at $60 million per year," Myers said. "Our indirect cost — which would include loss of jobs, hospitalization, impact on tourism and businesses — is estimated at more than $147 million a year."

She said there are about 150 gang members in the city.

"This is just an estimate, but they are responsible for about 90 percent of our violent crimes," she said.

The police proposition to install two dozen surveillance cameras in public places has raised the hackles of some Seaside residents who are concerned about privacy issues and abuse of government power. Myers countered that argument, in part, by noting the widespread use of camera phones in today's world.

"There is no expectation of privacy in a public place. What we are proposing is that the cameras we install will capture images only in public areas," she said. "Right now, any one of you can stand on a street corner and use your phone to take pictures or videos of the cars going by. There's nothing illegal about that. What we're proposing, instead of having someone out there with a phone or a camera, is attaching a camera to something and being able to walk away from it."

Myers said a strict policy, including oversight, will govern the use of the fixed cameras. She said the complexity of the system renders it virtually immune to hackers, and its durability enables it to withstand an attack by a baseball bat, a rock or hurricane-force rain.

Audience members wondered aloud whether cameras might intrude on private residences, and if the equipment could be used to monitor the movements of everyday citizens.

In both cases, the answer is no, Myers said. The fixed cameras will photograph only public places that have been identified as high-crime areas, and recorded imagery is searchable only by time and date.

She said the equipment will not be used to monitor traffic violations.

Range of the cameras is variable, she said, depending on geography, topography, angles, lighting and location, but cameras will be significant in identifying suspects and vehicles.

The estimated cost of maintaining the system annually is $30,000 to $50,000 — significantly less than hiring one full-time person, Myers said.